These Attorney General files were kept by the staff of the Office of Attorney General and consist of topics that were of particular interest or usefulness to Thornburgh, both in his role as Attorney General (justice-related) and in his personal life (non-justice related). These were kept separately and are similarly separate here. The justice-related files are not to be seen as representing department priorities necessarily, but more files of convenience to the Attorney General. Among those are issue files referred to as "Nuggets," which were files of particular relevancy and interest, and which Thornburgh kept close at hand for ready reference.

What is interesting, despite the more personal nature of these files, is that the notable topics and challenges of Thornburgh's years as Attorney General are well represented here. For example, the Savings and Loan (S and L) fraud scandal is a topic which dominates the "Nuggets" files, as drugs and related issues do with the Department of Justice files. Other prominent issues are crime and civil rights. It is fair to say that these files will have particular interest to researchers.

The Attorney General's non-justice related files are simply issues and events in which he had a more personal interest. Here, you find topics ranging, just for example, from baseball to personal events, to Pennsylvania matters, lists of trips taken by the Attorney General, and files regarding his official Governor portrait hanging in 1991.

The Attorney General's files are arranged as follows: 1) Department of Justice files (justice-related), an alphabetical listing of issues, people, organizations, events and other materials specifically related to Thornburgh's work as Attorney General. Large grouping of files, such as "Cases and investigations," are arranged alphabetically within each category (for example, by name of person or organization); 2) Attorney General's files (non-justice related), an alphabetical listing of issues, people, organizations, events and topics that are not necessarily related to his position at the Department of Justice; 3) Newspaper and magazine articles written about Thornburgh and kept in chronological order; 4) "Nugget" files; and 5) Telephone logs and messages, from the Office of the Attorney General.

Federal prison system: statement by J. Michael Quinlan, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, before the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and Administration of Justice of the House Judiciary Committee July 27, 1989

Violent crime: briefing by Attorney General on crime bill reported out of the House Judiciary Committee and Letter to Judiciary Committee opposing enactment of "Violent Crime Control Act of 1991" (S 618) and supporting S 635 September 12, 1990, May 14, 1991